AN AFTERNOON ON THE FIREHOLE
Reading edition
First View of the Firehole
HE Firehole is a companionable river. Notwithstanding its forbidding name, it is pre-eminently a stream for the angler, and always does its best to put him at his ease. Like some hospitable manorial lord, it comes straight down the highway for a league to greet the stranger and to offer him the freedom of its estate. Every fisherman who goes much alone along streams will unconsciously associate certain human attributes with the qualities of the waters he fishes. It may be a quiet charm that lulls to rest, or a bold current that challenges his endurance and caution. Between these extremes there is all that infinite range of moods and fancies which find their counterpart in the emotions. The Firehole possesses many of these qualities in a high degree. It can be broad, sunny and genial, or whisper with a scarcely audible lisp over languid, trailing beds of conferva; and anon, lead you with tumultuous voice between rocky walls where a misstep would be disastrous. The unfortunate person who travels in its company for the time required to make the tour of the Park and remains indifferent to all phases of its many-sidedness, should turn back. Nature will have no communion with him, nor will he gain her little secrets and confidences:
"They're just beyond the skyline, Howe'er so far you cruise."
Below the Cascades
During the restful period following the noon-hour, when there is a truce between fisherman and fish, we lie in the shadow of the pines and read "Our Lady's Tumbler," till, in the drowsy mind fancy plays an interlude with fact. The ripple of the distant stream becomes the patter of priestly feet down dim corridors, and the whisper of the pines the rustle of sacerdotal robes. Through half-shut lids we see the clouds drift across the slopes of a distant mountain, double as it were, cloud and snow bank vying with each other in whiteness.
Undine Falls
Neither the companionship of man nor that of a boisterous stream will accord with our present mood. So, with rod in hand, we ford the stream above the island and lie down amid the wild flowers in the shadow of the western hill. For wild flowers, like patriotism, seemingly reach their highest perfection amid conditions of soil and climate that are apparently most uncongenial. Here almost in reach of hand, are a variety and profusion of flowers rarely found in the most favored spots; columbines, gentians, forget-me-nots, asters and larkspurs, are all in bloom at the same moment, for the summer is short and nature has trained them to thrust forth their leaves beneath the very heel of winter and to bear bud, flower, and fruit within the compass of fifty days.
I strongly urge every tourist, angling or otherwise, to carry with him both a camera and a herbarium. With these he may preserve invaluable records of his outing; one to remind him of the lavish panorama of beauty of mountain, lake and waterfall; the other to hold within its leaves the delicately colored flowers that delight the senses. A great deal is said about the cheap tourist nowadays, with the emphasis so placed on the word "cheap" as to create a wrong impression. With the manner of your travel, whether in Pullman cars, Concord coaches, buck-board wagons, or on foot, this adjective has nothing to do. It does, however, describe pretty accurately a quality of mind too often found among visitors to such places—a mind that looks only to the present and passing events, and that between intervals of geyser-chasing, is busied with inconsequential gabble, with no thought of selecting the abiding, permanent things as treasures for the storehouse of memory.
What fisherman is there who has not in his fly-book a dozen or more flies that are perennial reminders of great piscatorial events? And what angler is there who does not love to go over them at times, one by one, and recall the incidents surrounding the history of each?
We fondle the flies in our fancy, Selecting a cast that will kill, Then wait till a breeze from the canyon Has rimpled the water so still;— Teal, and Fern, and Beaver, Coachman, and Caddis, and Herl,— And dream that the king of the river Lies under the foam of that swirl. There's a feather from far Tioga, And one from the Nepigon, And one from the upper Klamath That tell of battles won— Palmer, and Hackle, and Alder, Claret, and Polka, and Brown,— Each one a treasured memento Of days that have come and gone. A joust of hardiest conflict With knight in times of eld Would bring a lesser pleasure Than each of these victories held. Rapids, and foam, and smother, Lunge, and thrust, and leap,— And to know that the barbed feather Is fastened sure and deep. Abbey, and Chantry, and Quaker, Dorset and Canada, Premier, Hare's Ear, and Hawthorne, Brown Ant, and Yellow May, Jungle-Cock, Pheasant, and Triumph, Romeyn, and Montreal, Are names that will ever linger In the sunlight of Memory Hall.
The whole field of angling literature contains nothing more exquisite than the following description of the last days of Christopher North, as written by his daughter:
"It was an affecting sight to see him busy, nay, quite absorbed with the fishing tackle scattered about the bed, propped up with pillows—his noble head, yet glorious with its flowing locks, carefully combed by attentive hands, and falling on each side of his unfaded face. How neatly he picked out each elegantly dressed fly from its little bunch, drawing it out with trembling hand along the white coverlet, and then replacing it in his pocket-book, he would tell ever and anon of the streams he used to fish in of old."
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Picturesque Rocks in River
By four o'clock the stream is hidden from the sun and the shadow of the wooded summit at your back has crossed the roadway and is climbing the heights beyond. As if moved by some signal unheard by the listener, the trout begin to feed all along the surface of the water. Leap follows or accompanies leap as far as the eye can discern up stream, and down stream to where the water breaks to the downpull of the gorge below. Select a clear space for your back-cast, wait till a cloud obscures the sun. * * * * The trout took the fly from below and with a momentum that carried him full-length into the air. But there was no turning of the body in the arc that artists love to picture. He dropped straight down as he arose and the waters closed over him with a "plop" which you learn afterward is characteristic of the rise and strike of the German trout. All this may not be observed at first, for if he is one of the big fellows, he will cut out some busy-work for you to prevent his going under the top of that submerged tree which you had not noticed before. As it was, you brought him clear by a scant hand's breadth, only to have him dive for another similar one with greater energy.
"That Delectable Island"
Well, it's the same old story over again, but one that never becomes altogether tedious to the angler. And the profitable part of this tale is that it may be re-enacted here on any summer afternoon.
Some day a canoe will float down the river and land on the gravelly beach at the upper end of that delectable island, just where the trees are mirrored in the water so picturesquely. Then a tent will be set up and two shall possess that island for a whole, happy week. If you are coming by that road then, give the "Hallo" of the fellow craft and you shall have a loaf and as many fish as you like, and be sent on your way as becomes a man and brother.